Consumers of personal care products and cosmetics consider many factors in selecting products for use. Recently, certain factors have been a focus of and have driven scientific study and product development. These driving factors for hair care products include environmental impact, the extent to which the components condition hair, and the aesthetic quality of the overall product including clarity and foaming/lathering. Further, the effort towards environmental impact awareness is a universal concern and consumers are increasingly selective about the biodegradability of personal care products and cosmetics they purchase.
Hair care products which are sulfate free currently exist on the market, however, they tend to have certain undesirable properties such as lack of lathering or foaming, lack of gentle hair cleansing performance, lack of clarity especially in the presence of oils and fragrances, and poor overall viscosity.
In addition, currently available sulfate free hair care compositions require the addition of emulsifiers, thickeners, polymers, and/or hydrocolloids in order to stabilize and solubilize conditioning agents and improve viscosity. There are disadvantages to using emulsifiers, thickeners, polymers, and hydrocolloids. For example, alkoxylated emulsifiers can be eco-toxic and the process of producing them is usually harmful to the environment. Additionally, common thickeners, polymers and hydrocolloids tend to bio-accumulate and resist biodegradability, or have a negative effect on the foaming performance of the product. Thus, it is desirable to provide a composition which has improved sustainability and is biodegradable and non-toxic as compared to traditional shampoo formulations, while maintaining the favorable viscosity, foaming and cleansing properties.
Therefore, the present disclosure relates to a hair cleansing formulation that forms a visually clear cleansing composition with noticeable improvement in viscosity (gel-like appearance), stability, and solubility of conditioning agents without the need for emulsifiers such as alkoxylated surfactants or polyglycerol esters, thickeners such as glycol esters or glycol ethers, thickening or stabilizing polymers such as acrylic acid polymers and copolymers, and naturally-derived gums or hydrocolloids such as cellulose derivatives, guar or xanthan gums. Emulsifiers are generally described as ingredients that can be classified as surfactants but have properties that help form and stabilize an emulsion consisting of two phases such as oil-and-water containing phases. These emulsifiers are typically alkoxylated and have PEG, PPG, or polyglycerol functionalities. Surfactants are defined as ingredients that have the ability to modify the interface between two immiscible phases by reducing the surface tension, and serve a cleansing or detergency function.